Edwards: I Cheated

In an interview scheduled to be broadcast tonight on "Nightline," ABC News reports that the former North Carolina senator admitted he had an affair with 44-year old Rielle Hunter, but that he did not love her. He also denied he was the father of Hunter's baby girl, Frances Quinn, although he has not taken a paternity test. The interview will be broadcast tonight at 11:35 p.m.

"Learning that your partner has betrayed you is one of the most traumatizing experiences someone can face but it has to be particularly devastating to the spouse of a public figure," said relationship expert Brenda Della Casa, author of "Cinderella Was a Liar." "They go through the shock , humiliation and pain every betrayed spouse feels but they suffer on an national scale," she says.

The story about the affair began to make the rounds last month after Edwards, who was considered a potential Democratic vice presidential candidate for Barack Obama, ran into the bathroom at The Beverly Hills Hilton Hotel after being confronted by two reporters who said he was visiting Hunter.

Hunter was paid more than $100,000 for web videos used to promote Edwards during his presidential run. Hunter is said to be the mother of a child that The National Enquirer has alleged to be his, even though Hunter has said another man, Andrew Young, a former Edwards aide who is married, is the father. Young has also claimed the child as his. 

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The child's birth certificate lists no one as the child's father, despite Young's claim. California law requires both parents to sign a paternity form before the child's father can be listed on the certificate, though it can be added later.

The allegations about a potential relationship between Edwards and Hunter first surfaced in October 2007 when The National Enquirer published a story, which the newspaper continued to follow over time. Late last month, its reporters, who were guests at the hotel, say Edwards went into the hotel to visit Hunter, who was staying there. When he left her room, the reporters say they confronted him and he ran into a hotel bathroom. 

The two reporters filed an incident report with the local authorities alleging the hotel’s security guards detained them and escorted Edwards out of the bathroom and to safety.

When the story first broke, Edwards denied the allegations, saying "The story is false. It's completely untrue, ridiculous." "I've been in love with the same woman for 30-plus years," Edwards said, "and as anybody who's been around us knows, she's an extraordinary human being, warm, loving, beautiful, sexy and as good a person as I have ever known. So the story's just false."

When the recent story broke, Edwards said he wouldn't respond to lies.

The scandal spread across the blogosphere like wildfire, though traditional media outlets were slow to follow because The Enquirer has a less-than-credible reputation. Wikipedia eventually locked up John Edwards' entry on the encyclopedia site, saying any additions may be libelous. The Web site has since unlocked the profile.

Edwards said his wife, Elizabeth, who is battling inoperable breast cancer that has spread to her lungs, knows about the affair.

It isn’t the first time a politician has been caught in an extramarital affair. 

• In 1987, U.S. Sen. Gary Hart’s presidential campaign was destroyed after photographs surfaced of a woman, not his wife, sitting on his lap during a trip to Bimini on a boat called “Monkey Business.”
• A decade later, U.S. President Bill Clinton was caught in an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky after the young woman confided to a friend in a taped phone call that she was having a sexual relationship with him.
• In 2006, U.S. Congressman Mark Foley resigned from office after ABC News uncovered sexually explicit instant messages between Foley and a male page. 
• A year later, U.S. Sen. Larry Craig is serving out the remainder of his term in office, despite his guilty plea for disorderly conduct after he was arrested at an airport by undercover officers who had set up a bathroom sex sting.
• New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer resigned from office in March 2008 after it was discovered that he’d been using an Internet prostitution ring for sex.